If it involves getting free stuff, it will get anybody's attention. The thing bout free gadgets is that everyone knows if you are offered a survey, it's crap but if it's on facebook and the person doing the contest has an official website and has rules and stuff then hey it won't hurt to participate. Things that don't require to answer questions or make you put a lot of effort into it. As for giving away concept art and info about a game, it depends on the game. If Rovio did a contest to promote a new game using concept art, I wouldn't be interested....concept art bores me. Cool contests + free stuff = will get most people's attention.

I ignore and avoid the ones with a more narrow chance of winning. When it's a single item, usually I'm late for it; as some devs from other countries post while I'm asleep. So the prize has been taken way before I get a chance to post.

I tend to go for the promo code. Or a nice and fun challenge to earn that code.

Today for instance, Infinite Warrior devs have a "Design Your Own Shield" contest. And the selections get their design included in the game as well as a promo code. I think that's a pretty welcome challenge and a sweet deal if you ask me.

As a consumer I would definitely be interested in free stuff, but of course you would have to be credible. Going to a FB fanpage and seeing nothing there, no profile pics, nothing in information and no website, would totally turn me off.

I like the idea of getting concept art, if devs personalized the artwork before sending it to me, I would be a happy cubicle worker.

@oily_chi: I share the same suspicion. Now that I'm on the other side, I still find that I don't need all those nosy questions. I just want to give people the incentive to either download the app or at least get some likes on FB so their friends can know about it.

@obscenemedia: thanks very much for sharing the information you find. I'll be very interested to see what you find out.

@windrider07: yeah, I'm not into the surveys either, especially from websites that look hastily put together. I'll be sure to keep the promotion simple; it's in my best interest to get participation rates up, and the simpler it is, the more responses I should get.

@Eoghann: I never considered the aspect of the other devs being from other countries before. I like the challenge idea. My game is a word game, so thanks to you I'll probably ask entrants to give word suggestions to play.

@Braceface: I agree, credibility is a big part of all this. I hired a professional marketing company to help out with the FB and Twitter accounts, and got a good web designer for the web page. Concept art would be cool had my game been more graphically inclined.

One thing that did help was to get info of some local disk jockey's and find out their Twitter accounts. I asked for an RT and they did.

Our game is a zombie game so I also got RTs or Facebook Likes by leveraging the Zombie craze. We got Halloween around the corner, new season of The Walking Dead and all these zombie walks so all that is giving us a lot of momentum for the time being... After all that then who knows lol.

We are trying to be as helpful with indie game devs as we can and on Twitter joined the #IDRTG (Indie Developer ReTweet Group) and a lot of people will follow you if you follow them in that group...

I just had decent 11x17" posters for our game made and we will be venturing to all the local game shops like Game Stop and whatnot to see if we can post posters there. It will have a bit.ly short URL and QR code on there for quick downloads on the fly from people checking it out.

We will also be riding the Halloween craze and will post the posters around the Halloween and costume stores and Haunted houses wherever they are.

Lastly, we will be doing contests (have to be a Facebook fan) and the winner will get signed posters, merch and ,maybe iTunes gift cards.

All this has worked out really well so far. Good reviews of your game help as well. Lol.

I did those low budget 10,000 impressions for a couple gaming sites using BuySellAds.com and have been getting some success from a couple sites more than others... I'll make my money back from the advertising using the one site alone...
The others are probably a wash and I am not getting the clicks. Next month I will keep the one site and drop the others and maybe try one new one.

On the plus side, it looks like our game is being pirated at a rate of 3-4 pirated copies to 1 sale! So happy. ;(

I did those low budget 10,000 impressions for a couple gaming sites using BuySellAds.com and have been getting some success from a couple sites more than others... I'll make my money back from the advertising using the one site alone...

...On the plus side, it looks like our game is being pirated at a rate of 3-4 pirated copies to 1 sale! So happy. ;(

That's the first time I've heard of advertising having a positive payoff. Most of the stories I hear are about how the cost/benefit has been way too low.

RE: pirating, how can you tell the amount that's been pirated? (You just check actual sales vs downloads?)

And I'm wondering if an ad-supported/IAP-supported free version would be any better from a net revenue standpoint?

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